


Eucalyptus Kisses

by Callisto



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s04e16 On the Head of a Pin, Illnesses, Influenza, M/M, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:33:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/pseuds/Callisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“You know, I'm starting to think junkless has a better sense of humor than-”</i></p><p><i>Jensen’s face disappears into the crook of his arm. His shoulders convulse.</i></p><p><i>“Cut! Jensen?”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Eucalyptus Kisses

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently there was a reason - other than Dean having the crap kicked out of him - for Jensen Ackles to sound horrible during parts of 'On the Head of a Pin'.
> 
> Thanks to Ancasta for the beta.

“You know, I'm starting to think junkless has a better sense of humor than-”

Jensen’s face disappears into the crook of his arm. His shoulders convulse.

“Cut! Jensen?”

Jensen’s head comes up slowly. He clears his throat and looks back. Jared is tucked in behind Mike at the monitor, where he has to resist the urge to step out of the shadows and shake the stupid bastard. Shit, Jensen looks even worse than he did two hours ago.

Jensen clears his throat. So painfully Misha and the boom guy both wince. “Sorry, guys. Just...” Another hack. “Gimme a minute. Be fine.”

Jared sighs, looks around for Lonnie. Because, seriously, enough is enough.

 

 _Two hours previously..._

“Dude.” Jared stops walking. He can’t believe Jensen is still upright.

“What?” Jensen is blinking at him with the wateriest, reddest eyes Jared has ever seen.

“What _what_? You, man. Do you not see the lung y’all left on the ground back there?”

Jensen sniffs and flaps a hand in his classic ‘Eh’ gesture.

Jared gets in his face before Jensen can take another step. Jensen darts a wary look around, but a hustling and bustling early morning crew got used to them in each other’s faces long ago. Nobody bats an eye. Jared, like he’s proving just that point, wraps a hand around the side of Jensen’s neck and plants his feet.

“Don’t move.” He catches sight of one of his favorite people on her way towards them. “Hey Lonnie, how’s the baby?” His grin becomes a frown when he switches his attention to the heat under his hand. “Jensen, you have a fever.”

Jensen opens his mouth. Closes it as Lonnie walks past and turns to smile at them.

“Two teeth and gorgeous. Jensen, honey? Was that you back there?” She walks away backwards, raising her voice as she goes. “You come by and see me today. I got something herbal should get you breathing a whole lot better than that.”

“Thanks, Lonnie. He will.” Jared raises his free hand to return her wave. “You will,” he says, with an accompanying glare back at Jensen as he tightens his hold. Jensen can be stubborn to the point of idiocy when he gets sick like this, the stoic Texan in him tending to swagger on up and take charge.

“’M fine. Jesus, Jared. It’s just a cold. Get the fuck off me, will you? Come on, man, we’re on set.”

Jared lets him go. Not because he suddenly believes him or gives a rats ass about being on set, but because he knows Jensen really is struggling to stay upright. Getting him mad will just make his fever climb and sap his energy.

Jensen shrugs clear and stomps away. Jared turns to watch. Jensen gets as far as as the corner of the second make-up trailer before he stops, hacks, and spits up something gross-sounding into a tissue. Jared shakes his head and follows from a safe distance.

 

 _Two and a half hours later..._

“Jared, what’re..? Dude, I don’t need—

Jared pulls, almost yanking Jensen off his feet as he drags him into the trailer. He heels the door shut, venting on some plywood rather than the pitiful object he’s got his hands on. The same pitiful object now trying to back up, glare, grind its teeth, and breathe. All at the same time.

Jared matches him, stare for stare. “Jensen. God and the internet know I love you, but holy hell you are dancing on my last nerve with this stoic shit.” He tugs Jensen’s sleeve again, gratified when Jensen gives–albeit reluctantly–and takes a step forward.

Jared lifts his chin and directs Jensen’s gaze towards the steaming aromatic bowl on the table, together with a folded towel and a mug. Also steaming. Teeth still ground and ready for a spitting contest, Jared’s heart nevertheless gets tugged on something fierce when Jensen turns a confused, red-eyed blink his way. Jared bites his lip and sighs. “Jensen, will you... Christ, will you shut up and let me handle this a little?”

Uh-oh. Wrong move. Jensen’s gaze narrows and he wrenches free. “ _Handle_ this a little? Fuck you, asshole. I don’t—

The force of the cough practically bends Jensen double. Jared waits till it’s over, then steps up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that over all the goddamn coughing. Wanna try again?”

“Fuck you,” Jensen wheezes out, from somewhere around his own knees.

“Yeah, well. Maybe later. Much later. Right now the only action coming your way is a towel and a bowl.”

Jensen raises up, bracing his hands on his knees. Jared can see the concentration as he tries to breathe in without triggering another coughing spasm. Jared’s hand goes out, finds Jensen’s back and starts rubbing what he hopes are soothing circles because really, who the fuck was Jared kidding about being tough with Jensen here?

He settles his palm between Jensen’s shoulder blades and smooths his fingers back and forth, aware of the shiver under his palm.

“Come on, you can kick my ass later. Just... indulge me, okay? Let me mollycoddle.”

That gets the barest hint of a smile. Jensen straightens the rest of the way and breathes out experimentally. He tilts his head sideways to squint at Jared. “Mollycoddle, huh?” he croaks.

Jared grins. “Mollycoddle,” he says firmly.

With Jensen tentatively on board – or simply too sick to kick Jared’s ass about it any more – it doesn’t take long until he’s seated at the table and bent over Lonnie’s magical brew.

Silence and wheezy inhalations reign for a blissful few minutes.

“Jay?”

“Shhh. You’re not supposed to talk. Breathe in one nostril, down the other, dude. Just like Lonnie said.”

A sigh. But no accompanying cough, so Jared thinks maybe all that shit under the towel with Jensen is actually doing something.

He goes back to the script he’s reading. He doesn’t have much to do this week, but he’d still like to have the hospital scene down before Jensen goes back out there.

A noise.

“What?” Jared looks up from the sofa.

A cough, which is more like a throat clearing. Finally. “Aren’t I done? It’s fucking hot under here, Jay.”

Jared likes the way that sounds, all whiny and clear-syllabled. He smiles fondly at the towel-covered lump.

“Five more minutes. And finish your tea.” Lonnie brewed an accompanying concoction, which to Jared smells like hot grass with a pinch of bark, but which Jensen has been noisily blowing on and sipping without complaint for the last ten minutes.

Five minutes pass and there’s no more coughing, so Jared quietly gets up and takes the nearly empty mug off the table. He reaches for the top of the towel with his other hand.

“Okay, you’re all...um, organically herbalized? Whatever. You can come out now, princess. Just don’t—

He’s cut off by a pair of arms that swivel out and settle around his hips. A hot damp face presses into his shirt.

“Jensen?” His hand tugs the towel all the way off, pats Jensen’s equally hot, damp hair. The smell of eucalyptus is eye-watering.

“You okay?”

In answer he gets a groan and held more tightly.

“Was horrible,” is the muffled answer.

Jensen still sounds very nasal, and Jared figures it’s not going to take much for him to lose his voice completely. But at least he’s comprehensible now. And not coughing his lungs up as the period to his sentences.

“It smelt like puke, man. I don’t know how you drank it. But hey, you sound much better.”

Jensen looks up, all pink-cheeked and wide-eyed as he rests his chin on the waistband of Jared’s jeans. “No, me. _I_ was horrible. To you. The drink was fine.”

Jensen is actually _smiling_ , the fucker.

Jared smiles back. Can’t help it. Can’t help putting both hands on that damp eucalyptic head, either.

“Bastard,” he says.

Jensen sniffs, adjusts his hold on Jared’s hips and turns his face to the side. He doesn’t let go.

“’M sick, Jared.”

Jared runs his fingers gently through the cooling strands of Jensen’s hair. Jensen sniffs again, closes his eyes, and Jared offers up a silent hallelujah. The stoic Texan has finally left the building. Thank Christ.

“Yes, you are.”

“’M really sick.”

“Well, you’re not dyin.’”

He gets a look.

“What? You’re not.”

Jensen’s face turns sideways again, cheek pressing in. Then he moves it back and forth.

Jared stills his hands. “Dude. Did you just wipe your nose on me?”

“Totally.”

It comes out hoarse and cracked right down the middle, so Jared holds off smacking him upside the head. Instead he changes his grip.

“Come on, Snot Boy. Let’s get you up and over to a pillow.”

It’s a measure of just how out of it Jensen is, in that he lets himself be man-handled up and walked over to the sofa. Even Jared taking his shoes off and covering him with a blanket doesn’t get much more than a slow-blinking fascination.

Jared perches on the edge at Jensen’s waist. Stretches his left hand out to rest on Jensen’s forehead. It’s still warm, but nothing like before.

“Jared...?” It comes out molasses slow, sexy as hell, and Jared tries not to find Jensen’s furrowed brow adorable.

Fuck it. They’re alone in the trailer and Jensen is sick.

Jared takes his hand and kisses a knuckle before resting their joined hands back on the blanket.

“What?” He asks quietly.

“I should... Man, I gotta get up.”

Jensen actually makes a feeble effort to rise and Jared is tempted to watch and see how far the asshole thinks he can get. But Jensen barks a short sharp cough after he’s struggled up a couple of inches, and Jared has no choice but to gently press him back down.

“Jensen, chill. I already talked to Mike and they don’t need you till three. Which gives you...” Jared looks at his watch. “...about an hour and half to power nap your way into Dean getting the crap kicked out of him.”

Jensen licks his lips, appears to think about it. “Misha?”

“Is doing his dialogue now. They’re going to film your stuff later. When you can actually like, talk in whole sentences.”

Jensen swallows. “Fuck, that’s gonna look like shit, Jared.”

“Dude. It’s you in bed with a tube up your nose and a tear down your cheek. It’s gonna look awesome.”

“Jared...”

“Come on. Just blow your nose, sleep, and breathe. I’ll be back in about an hour. I owe Lonnie a pigtail.

“A what?”

“A pigtail. Never mind. She gets to put me in bunches. Or something. And take pictures for the wall. In return for spending her break cooking up that herbal shit.”

“Ouch. Sorry.”

“Nah. Be fun. I’ll see you later. Your phone is with me, so fucking relax, okay?”

One last squeeze of his hand and Jared stands up.

But Jensen grabs his sleeve, pulls him in close, and whispers something which sounds suspiciously like “fucking mollycoddler” just before he passes out.

Jared feels fine about that, though. Because he got a eucalyptus-laced press of lips to go with it.

Amazingly, he’s still fine about it twenty minutes later, when he’s got his hair in pink-ribboned _braids_ for fuck’s sake, and Lonnie and the make-up crew are cracking up and snapping all the shots they can.

A sudden sneeze propels him forward, almost off his chair. Then another.

“Oh, honey,” says Lonnie, walking over to hold out a box.

Jared shakes his head as he reaches into it for a Kleenex. “Thanks,” he croaks.

God bless and damn Jensen and his eucalyptus kisses.

******


End file.
